Fallout
by BodhiJones
Summary: Truth... it's what matters most right? (Follow-on from Freefall, so please head over there first) Chloe knows everything, so how do the ripples from that revelation go on to affect others? Can life go on as normal? Trouble is, someone else out there seems to know too, someone with a mission. Lucifer/Chloe, Drama, Angst, Friendship.


The scruffy middle-aged man shuffled along the sidewalk, head dipped low, his jacket frayed and stained, the only one he owned but he didn't mind, it was the only one he needed. People stepped around him, making an effort to avert their gaze and their path, they chose not to see or engage and he preferred it that way. Maybe they thought him a shambling dropout, a failure, someone who had given up. The weakness they saw was his trusty shield, the tattered hoodie worn underneath that awful jacket was his shining armour. It concealed him, it helped, it meant that people left him the hell alone.

Turned out you could be a magician if you really wanted to be. It wasn't that hard to vanish in plain sight.

A selfish desire for wealth and success had once driven his life. He'd achieved it, he'd scrabbled together money and influence, only to squander it in the pursuit of trite ambitions and petty desires. But that was all a folly, a windmill for the truly mad to tilt at. His eyes were open now for none of it compared to his newfound purpose.

It was a calling, he had been chosen, he understood that now.

He clambered awkwardly through the broken boards scattered around the door, feeling his age as his back spasmed cruelly. The old church was neglected, long abandoned, the air musty with a faint trace of damp. He felt a twinge of kinship for the forlorn building as his eyes adjusted to the gloom. He knocked back his hood in deference, his hand brushing briefly through his wiry short grey hair as he glanced up to the high rafters. This was still consecrated ground to him, even if everyone else had given up on it, the echo of a thousand past hymns and prayers had to count for something right?

Someone else had been here, he spread his palm against one wall in dismay. They'd left behind a fresh streak of graffiti that spiralled madly across the flaking paint, a garish splash of colour in his precious sanctuary. It pained him how these vandals had no idea what they were doing. They had no respect for the fact this was a holy place. One day, he knew, they would be held to account and made to feel the shame of their actions.

He grit his teeth, holding back a curse of anger, he used to swear so often but now he was trying to be a better man than that. One hand slipped into the pocket of his jacket, around the reassuringly solid weight of the stolen weapon instead, he clutched at it like a talisman.

People didn't know... but he did... the truth had dug its claws deep into him and wouldn't let him go. Each morning he awoke with a jolt, hands trembling, wishing that he _didn't_ know.

He clenched his grip tight around the cold metal until his hand hurt. Once he'd been an ignorant sinner too, so many sins that he winced at the memory of them, but he'd been gifted a second chance. Now there was nothing but the mission and the opportunity to redeem himself.

With a few steadying breaths he calmed the dizzying flare of anger inside. He cast about for something sharp, his hand falling on a broken door hinge amongst the detritus on the floor, it would do well enough. His lips quivered, moving constantly, a solitary quiet prayer in the tomb-like hush of the old building. "Be alert..." he murmured under his breath whilst the broken metal bracket in his hand carved easily through the stained plaster "b-be alert... and of sober mind." He drew another calming breath , finding satisfaction in trying to restore the purity of the old building in this small way. "Your enemy the devil p-prowls around like a roaring lion... looking for someone to devour."

The work paused as he grimaced and closed his eyes and tried to ignore the shake in his hand. He was frightened, of course he was, the task ahead of him was fraught with danger. The Serpent himself was right here in Los Angeles, parading as a man, he knew it for a fact. As he was the only one that knew then it was up to him to do something about it.

He had seen it for himself, it was the truth, and after all isn't that what mattered most?

For once in his damned life he was in the right.


End file.
